Obscurity to Caudillo in 7 Fractious Years

The United States had Uncle Ron, the Teflon president. Peru has Lucky Al, the rubber president.

Unlike Ronald Reagan, trouble doesn’t slide off Alberto Fujimori. Instead, crises that would fell lesser men bounce off him, although not always as fast as he would like. From the time he decided to boost his senate candidacy in 1989 with a run for the presidency (in Peru, you could do both simultaneously) and stunned himself by winning, he has been rescued time and again from disaster through the combination of good fortune, the competence of others and his own extraordinary talent for public relations. Unmentioned in the euphoria this week after the hostages were freed was the fact that the taking of the Japanese Embassy in December by Tupac Amaru guerrillas was just as spectacular a Fujimori failure as the army operation was a success. Fujimori was embarrassingly outmaneuvered then by a small band of outlaws. But none of that matters, for now at least.

Over the past six years, Fujimori has tamed a chaotic economy, smashed two guerrilla forces, drawn massive foreign investment, canceled democracy, waged a costly and pointless war with Ecuador and crippled fundamental human rights. With this week’s victory, his triumph is total. He has completed his journey from obscurity--begun as an outsider son of Japanese immigrants, an agronomist, “el Chino” (Chinaman), as people call him--to classic Latin caudillo, or kingpin. His signature moment on Tuesday--jumping on to the departing bus with the freed hostages, exultant, waving the Peruvian flag to the screaming crowd--is one repeated throughout his presidency.

How does he do it? Well, he lies. He cheats. He manipulates. And he works hard, constantly reminding people that he is born of the Japanese work ethic in a country plagued by inefficiency. Fujimori is so single-minded in his obsession to amass and exploit power that nothing--not his marriage, not his children, not his country’s pesky democratic institutions--get in his way. His primary tactic is to keep both enemies and friends off balance. He will say one thing and do another. After taking office in 1990, he reversed his campaign promises and adopted the neoliberal economic plan of his opponent, bringing macroeconomic stability while sending millions into virtual despair. When Congress and the courts tried to block him, he suspended them in 1992, doing what his Latin American counterparts could only envy but never dare in this era of democracy. “My government has recovered order and recovered the principle of authority,” he once told me. “Authority must function, even in a democracy.”

It’s not easy to understand Fujimori. He believes in civilian rule. He is not a democrat. He is a pragmatist. He is not an ideologue. He is a man of firm convictions. His convictions can change overnight. In the end, the only thing that interests him is results. As Enrique Obando, a leading Peruvian analyst, puts it, “Fujimori can give you his word today and tomorrow do the opposite.” Look no further than the hostage crisis--he vowed to Japan there would be no assault against the embassy without its foreknowledge. In January, he promised families of the hostages that he would end the crisis peacefully.

Fujimori’s is not a lovable public persona. His austere and unforgiving nature make him the kind of guy Peruvians wouldn’t want for the weekend, but still want as a president. This is a man who locked his wife of 20 years out of the palace and forced a divorce; who, as his daughter Keiko complained to me, allowed the presidency “to destroy our family.”

Fujimori has done what no politician in Peru’s chaos could do--gutted the existing political order and imposed his own. When, in 1993, police nabbed Abimael Guzman, leader of the murderous Shining Path army that paralyzed the nation, Fujimori turned the wave of national relief to his own credit--even though he was off fishing at the time. Recently, as economic reform led to even greater unemployment and growing discontent, Fujimori’s standings took a dive, followed by a four month-long stalemate over the hostage crisis that sent his polls still lower. Then--que suerte-- commandos freed the captives on live TV, with their flak-jacketed commander in chief basking in the glow.

All of it can only fuel Fujimori’s dreams for an unprecedented third term. What makes Al run is power. He is using this week’s events to burnish his image of competence, his ability to make the impossible possible, the unreal real. In Peru, with its modern political and economic history of turmoil, poverty and civil breakdown, that is a deep well that Fujimori returns to again and again. If it doesn’t run dry, Peruvians are likely to hang on to their unlikely Latin caudillo.